


No Rest for the Weary

by hardlyfatal



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: BtVS/PotC, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, PotC/BtVS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8006044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlyfatal/pseuds/hardlyfatal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy can't even go on vacation without something going wrong. Between the hurricane, the time travel, and one scorchingly sexy English naval captain, there is never any rest for the weary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2004 when I was hip-deep into crossovers of BtVS/every single other fandom ever. I'm polishing it up since I've had 12 years of writing experience since then, but as always, if you see a problem, feel free to tell me. 
> 
> This fic is set about a year after the Scoobies settled at the latest Hellmouth in Cleveland, post-season 7, and a few years after the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Spoilers include the possibility for anything prior to the BtVS series finale. None of the subsequent PotC movies ever happened after the first one.

  

 

Buffy Summers was in the middle of the first vacation she'd had in a decade.

She lay on the Jamaican beach in the smallest bikini she had been able to find— _quite_  small, we assure you— peered over the neon-pink stripe of zinc oxide on her nose, and took another swig of the booze-laden fruity drinks clutched in her hand. She had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to slay.

It was actually kind of boring.

 _Boring, but at least I look good,_ she thought with a crooked grin, gazing down to admire her nicely browning limbs. Flipping over so her back and butt could get toasty as well, she pillowed her head on her arms and fell asleep right away.

She was awoken an hour later by one of the resort employees. "Pardon me, miss, but there is a storm coming. You must come inside." His round face split into a sparkling grin. "We are having a hurricane party, miss."

"Let me guess," Buffy said, groggy, pushing herself up onto her elbows. "A mountain of shrimp as tall as me, and more rum?"

He nodded happily. "Of course. This  _is_  Jamaica, after all."

He left her there to follow at her own pace. She rolled over and sat up, gaze taking in the changes in weather. The breeze, always strong, was now a stiff wind, and her hair was whipping around her face. She reached in her beach bag for a hair tie and tied it back, continuing to scrutinize the area.

The palm trees were swaying briskly, and the blue-green waves were beginning to pound onto the white sand. In the distance, the lowering clouds had gone an ominous shade of gray, and at least a dozen boats were hastening to make it back to shore.

Buffy sighed and pulled her sarong wrap from the bag before shaking out her towel and cramming it in. Adjusting the sunglasses on her face, she slipped her feet into her sandals and made her way back to her room to shower and change... had to look good for the hurricane party, after all.

She'd come to The Port Royal Inn on Giles' insistence she take some time to relax. She hadn't wanted to come alone, but Xander couldn't get time off work, Dawn had school, Kennedy hated the Caribbean and Willow wouldn't go without her. Giles himself had returned to England for a few months of rebuilding the Council and couldn't spare the time.

That left her, herself, and she. She was bored, but the booze helped. Laying in a pleasant, half-comatose state for days upon end was working wonders on her mood. And her hair was lightening into a rather attractive, streaky-blond mass, at the same time her skin was losing the pasty whiteness it had lapsed into after living for a year in Cleveland. Nice town, but not exactly known for its sunny weather and beach volleyball.

So, she'd come to Jamaica. This resort was new, built on the restored site of the former governor's mansion. Buffy was apparently staying in the former bedroom of the governor's daughter. The pamphlet in the lobby said that she'd caused a big scandal by marrying far below her station when she fell in love with a blacksmith.

"Hah," Buffy had said upon reading it, unmoved. After being one-half of the ultimate pair of star-crossed lovers, there wasn't a lot that impressed her anymore.

She showered, then slathered herself with expensive post-sunning lotion and enjoyed the sensation of walking around in the buff whilst she pulled out various garments in preparation for the party. How sexy did she want to look? Attractive-by-default, or Come-shag-me? Did she even want to get shagged? And why was she using the word "shagged"? It just made her think of Spike, and even after a year, that hurt.

Frowning, she closed her eyes for a moment and tried to get a feel for her libido. Where the hell had it gone, in the past few years? She hadn't had sex since her last time with Spike, back in her goth-but-for-the-gloomy-outfits phase after being returned to life, and honestly hadn't missed it that much.

Buffy tried thinking of sexy things, to see if she could awaken a horny response. Angel in full-on King Of Pain mode: nah. Again with the gloomy. Spike in full-on let-me-corrupt-you mode: nah. That only worked when she was depressed, and she was far too tan and blonde to be depressed at the moment, especially with the prospect of a mountain of shrimp in her near future. Riley in—oh, not even. Thinking of Riley made Buffy think of Sam, which then reminded her how short she was, which wasn't even a little sexy.

She slicked on peachy lip gloss and hoped at least one of the several decent-looking young men at the resort were straight. She'd so far only seen them in pairs, sporting suspiciously well-coordinated outfits with their well-barbered haircuts. It boded ill.

With a last glance of approval at her reflection in the mirror, Buffy left her room, slipping the card-key-thingy in her tiny handbag and striding as purposefully as a girl could manage in strappy backless Jimmy Choos (thank God for being able to guilt-trip Giles into giving her the Council’s corporate AmEx). Her frock, a floaty little chiffon slip-dress in kelly green, made her hair and skin gleam, and her eyes seem greener, too.

She sailed into the party like a queen, and not a moment too soon: as soon as her daintily-shod foot stepped over the threshold, thunder boomed overhead and the heaven opened with a flash of blind-making lightning.

And Buffy only stood there, drawing all eyes with her poise, if not her immense stature, and bestowed a gracious smile upon them all.  _Amazing how long the rum'll stay in your system,_  Buffy thought happily. She'd never have been able to be this calm and relaxed without all those mai tais on the beach earlier.

A waiter brought her a huge plateful of shrimp, a pint of cocktail sauce, and the biggest drink she'd ever seen. An improbable shade of day-glo blue, it was laden with ground ice, umbrellas, pineapple, cherries and what appeared to be a whole banana. She blinked over it at the waiter.

"We're very concerned that our guests get as much fiber and vitamins as possible, miss," he told her, managing to keep a straight face. "Be sure you drink the whole thing."

Buffy waved him off and began to tackle her twin mounds of food and drink. It wasn't until she'd polished off the shrimp and was halfway through the rum-soaked pineapple slices—and feeling pleasantly tanked, we don't mind adding—that an odd sort of awareness began to prickle across the back of her neck. It wasn't a demons-at-two-o'clock kind of feeling, but there was still something of the danger about it.

Somewhere, something was wrong.

She stood—using her napkin to make sure no cocktail sauce remained from her shrimp orgy—and made her way to the open side of the veranda, resting her hand on a pillar. The rear of the resort overlooked a steep embankment with an equally steep staircase of old stone cut into the hillside to the beach below.

"Hallo," said a male voice beside her, and Buffy turned to find one of those handsome, well-dressed men leaning against the opposite pillar.

"Hi," she replied, but her heart wasn't in it—all previous traces of sure-would-be-nice-to-get-laid had vanished in the face of that persistent sense of foreboding. She scarcely looked at him, shooting him a brief smile before turning back to stare at the beach, and then the water. It was a roiling black mass, what she could see of it through the pounding rain, and her unease grew steadily stronger.

"—my family's ancestor used to be a soldier on the island here," the man was saying.  _English accent, sounded more like Giles and Wesley than Spike, early thirties,_  Buffy cataloged automatically even her stomach began to ache with apprehension. What was going on? Why was she so... worried?

"Not a direct antecedent, I'm afraid," the man continued. "More like my great-great-great-great-grandfather's brother." He paused. "But you're not interested in that."

Buffy flushed, feeling guilty.

"Sorry," she said, pressing her hand to her belly. "I don't feel well. Too many shrimp," she lied. No, her nausea had nothing to do with the shrimp. She had to get away from here, right now. "No," she said to his concerned offer of help to her room or the infirmary. "I'll just go back on my own. Thanks."

He tried to insist, but she held firm and lurched away under her own steam. Once inside the house again, instead of making for the huge curved staircase leading to her room, she slipped out the front door and crept around the side of the house. It was rough going, having to struggle through hydrangea and oleander bushes and almost weeping at the idea of what the rain-soft grass and mud were doing to her shoes, but the unease that had filled her began to lessen with each step she came closer to the beach.

At the bottom of the stairs reaching to the sand, Buffy stripped off the shoes and flung them aside before scraping her soaked hair off her face. It was raining so hard she could barely see, even with her Slayer-enhanced sight, and she peered hard toward the waves crashing upon the shore.

Then a humongous bolt of lightning flashed out at sea, and for a moment, there was complete silence: electricity prickled along Buffy's skin, making the fine hairs on her body raise in shivery alarm, and the scent of ozone filled the air. She felt like she'd been struck deaf; even the pelting of the rain and smashing waves faded into nothingness.

Her heart thumped once, twice. The sound of it was loud as a gunshot, after that profound silence, and then her hearing returned once more in a roar that made her gasp at the suddenness of it. And the discomfort was back in her stomach, stronger than before. Buffy thought she might actually vomit.

She stepped off the last stair, feeling the wet sand cake between her toes, and immediately, the soreness lessened. Another step, less discomfort. With each step taken toward the water, the better she felt. Ironic, she thought, because her fear of being swept away by the huge force of the angry sea ratcheted up correspondingly.

The outer reaches of the waves were lashing at her feet when she saw it. A miracle she had, really, and only due to her Slay-O-Vision. But about fifty feet out, tossed up and down by the thrashing waves, was... something.

_A person._

Buffy blinked hard, hoping it wasn't the salty water flicking into her eyes that was making her see things. Nope, there was definitely someone out there. She sighed, hoping she wasn't about to get herself killed as well as the poor jerk out there, and began running toward the water. A deep breath, a dive, and she was in.

The force of the waves almost shocked her into a gasp as they snatched her small body and flung it around. Kicking hard, Buffy pushed herself to the surface and squinted until she saw the person again. She swam for what seemed like hours—but was probably only five minutes—and almost cried with relief when she managed to grab a handful of his clothing. She treaded water, getting a better grip around him, and began to swim back to shore.

Time and again, waves swooped down over them, pouring into Buffy's eyes and ears and mouth until she thought she'd choke on the salt. Her limbs felt like lead as exhaustion soon set in, and it was only sheer force of will that kept her going.

Collapsing with profound relief onto the beach at last, she crawled out of the water, dragging the person behind her by the scruff of his collar. Until she regained her strength and could go for help, there was no shelter to be had except for the stand of palm trees, so she slowly, painfully crept her way there with her insensible passenger in tow.

Once there, she turned him—she could see by now it was a him—onto his belly and pounded his back until he began to cough up copious amounts of seawater. When his paroxysms ceased, she rolled him over and propped his head on her lap as she leaned against the trunk of a palm tree.

She couldn't believe they were still alive. If she hadn't been a Slayer, with all the strength and agility that went along with it, they wouldn't have been. Buffy had never felt so overcome, so small, so helpless before. There was little a person, even someone like her, could do in the face of all that power. 

 _The First can go to hell_ , she thought with a grim smile.  _It's got nothing on Mother Nature._

Buffy sat there for hours, just getting rained on as she slept, and woke, and slept again, and woke once more. The sky was beginning to lighten when the man began to stir, and she studied him, having nothing else to do.

He was wearing some super-weird clothes, dressed pretty much like she imagined Ben Franklin had. Light-colored pants tucked into shiny black knee-high leather boots, a high-buttoned vest, and a long coat with huge turned-back cuffs that seemed to be made of wool—no wonder it had felt like she'd been hauling several thousand tons. His entire outfit must have soaked up gallons and gallons of water.

He seemed not young, exactly, but not old, either—early to mid-thirties, was her guess, and reasonably good-looking. Not quite on par with Spike or Angel, but few were.

She let her head drop back against the palm tree and closed her eyes to doze a little more. It was still raining, and her fingers were utterly pruney. Her careful hair styling and makeup from the night before was destroyed and she probably looked like some sort of sea-monster. Her dress was ruined, too—stained by salt water and ripped in parts from where the fragile material had ground against the sand.

"I must look like The Creature from the Black Lagoon," Buffy muttered, grouchy.

"No," rasped a masculine voice in the snootiest English accent she’d ever heard. "Rather like an angel of mercy."

Eyebrows raised, she looked down to find the man staring up at her. His eyes were a piercing, light blue and fixed on her face with an intensity that put her at a loss for words.

But only for a little while.

"An angel? Me?" She laughed, so amused by the idea that she didn't even mind that it was raining into her mouth. "Um, no. Not even close."

The man seemed to come back to himself then, for the dazed look left his face and he compressed his mouth until his lips almost disappeared.

"Of course not," he said, his clipped tones so in line with Giles-in-full-repression-mode that Buffy couldn't help but smile. "I beg your pardon," he said then, sitting up, and she was baffled for a second until she realized he was excusing himself for laying his head in her lap, no matter that she'd put it there herself.

"Not a problem," she replied, her tone benign.

"Where are we?" He combed back a shock of damp brown hair and tried to peer through the sheets of rain that poured down onto them.

"Jamaica," Buffy answered. "The beach below the Port Royal Inn, to be exact. I found you a few hours ago. I exhausted myself pulling you out of the water and needed to rest before I could bring you up to the resort." She stretched her arms and legs, relieved to find they felt at full power. "Shouldn't be a problem now."

The man frowned, his dark brows drawing together over a blade of a nose. "You... pulled me from the water? By yourself?"

Buffy nodded and massaged her right shoulder. "Yeah, and it was a bitch of a job, too. I was sure we were going to die."

He seemed taken aback by her casual use of a less-than-ladylike word, but recovered with aplomb. "I can hardly believe that a tiny thing like yourself was able to—"

"Yeah, yeah. 'You're so small, there's no way you could ever have been able to blah blabbity blah.' Heard it all before, Mr. Uptight," Buffy said, cross.

He blinked, and then the tiniest of smiles appeared on his clamped-shut mouth. "That's  _Commodore_  Uptight," he said after a moment.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Right," she said. "You're a commodore."

He nodded, managing to look quite serious and stately in spite of the rain coursing over him. "I am."

Buffy folded her arms over her chest. "So where's Lionel Ritchie and the rest of them, then?"

He frowned deeper. "I am not aware of a Lionel, but the Earl of Eglinton's family name is Ritchie. His son, Charles, was in school with me…" He saw that she had no recognition of these names, and trailed off.

Buffy peered through the rain at the watery sunlight struggling through the clouds. "So, you ready to go?"

"There is nowhere  _to_  go," he said with emphasis. "Port Royal was abandoned after the earthquake three years ago." He shifted to lean against his own palm tree. "but perhaps we can take shelter in… what did you say we were near?"

"The Port Royal Inn," Buffy replied, wondering what he was yapping about with that earthquake stuff. "And yeah, we can 'take shelter' there." She stood, brushing the thick coating of sand from her legs and backside. "I can't wait to have a hot shower, and some food…"

" _Tea_ ," he said firmly, getting to his feet as well. "Definitely. I could murder about a gallon of it, right now."

Buffy began to trudge through the rain in the direction of the stairs. "I think after this, even  _I_  could murder a gallon of tea."

"Not fond of the beverage of kings, then?" he asked, and she glanced at him to find he was grinning at her. It relieved the sternness of his face, and she was surprised to find that he was quite handsome.

"You could say that," Buffy replied, feeling a little breathless in a way that had nothing to do with their trek through the storm as various parts of her perked up. "Why are you so cheerful now, anyway?"

"Glad to be alive," he replied, staring out over the thundering surf. "I only just realized how close I came to death. You'd think after twelve years in the Navy, I'd be accustomed to risking my life, but…"

"But it's different when it's your job," Buffy finished for him, her own mind wandering to less-than-fun places. "You don't expect to die in a normal way—you think you'll go down fighting. You live your life accepting that you'll probably die young, and nowhere near your own bed, and you get to feeling like it would be wrong, otherwise."

He spun back to her, his eyes wide. The rain had turned his lashes spiky, and rivulets coursed down his cheek. One fat droplet dripped off the end of his nose, and she watched as it absorbed into the lapel of his big weird coat. "Yes," he said finally. "That's… exactly how it is."

It was Buffy's turn to grin. "If you're a good boy," she said, "I might explain to you how I know that."

"A… good boy?" His eyebrows lifted a little. "Madam, you have the most peculiar way of speaking."

"So says the man dressed like Ben Franklin," she retorted. "Now help me find the stairs… they really should be somewhere around here." But there was nothing there, no matter that Buffy ignored his inquiries (about who Ben Franklin was and if he were a naval officer in order) to search extra hard. The stairs were just—

"Gone," she declared, frustrated. "Though if the wind were strong enough to blow them away, we'd be gone, too." She combed her sodden hair back off her forehead with shaky fingers.

"Can we not just climb the hill?" he asked with a God-you're-so-stupid tone to his voice that Buffy was positive she didn't like.

"Fine, do it the hard way," she grumbled, and started pulling herself up. Several times he tried to climb ahead of her, reaching his hand down to assist her, but she just looked at him oddly.

"Trust me," Buffy told him, "I'll need way less help than you." And she was proven correct when he slipped and started to fall backward, his equilibrium skewed, until she simultaneously locked her elbow under a protruding root and grabbed the back of his coat. He dangled from her grasp for a short, terrifying moment until she was able to swing him back and plant him against the embankment.

"You're letting your center of gravity lean too far back," she told him. "Keep your chest flat against the ground."

Eyes wide, he nodded, mute, and let her lead. A few times she looked down and had to smirk; he was sneaking peeks up her skirt, even though he tried to pretend he was averting his eyes.

At the top, Buffy was too busy helping him over the edge to take a good look at her surroundings. When she finally straightened, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Fuck."

His head whipped around at that. "Miss Summers, I really must protest—"

She slapped her hand over his mouth, cutting off his words.

"Where the  _hell_  did the resort go?" she demanded to no one, really, because  _he_  wasn't going to know, and… there was no one else there to answer. Where a five-star, recently-refurbished hotel had been last night, now there was only the crumbling hulk of a deserted mansion, shutters hanging drunkenly off their hinges, empty doorways yawning open. Weeds grew tall and unkempt where before had been only manicured greenery.

No one had been there in a long time.

"What year is it?' Buffy whispered.

He didn't answer at first; she could feel his eyes on her, concerned and confused. "I don't—"

"Please," she said, tired. "Please, just tell me."

"It is 1695," he said, and she hung her head.

"Doesn't that just figure," she mumbled after a moment. "I come to Jamaica to get away from it all, and end up getting further away than even Giles wanted me to go."

"Er. Right." He was obviously at a loss for words. "What year were you hoping it would be, then?"

Buffy waved her hand in dismissal. "2005, but don't worry about it." The rain was still pouring down on them. "Let's just see if we can't get dry, okay?"

She picked her way through the debris, him at her heels, and she was relieved to find that the interior, whilst not closed to the outside, was still in somewhat decent condition.

"This is the governor's mansion," he said. "I believe the kitchen is through here."

He led the way through what had been, not too long ago, an elegant dining room. Through a door which no longer swung on its rusted hinges—necessitating a hard shoulder to its surface to force the issue—they found themselves in a large room with an immense fireplace. A sizable amount of firewood tumbled across the floor, spilled from where it had been stacked in a bin in the corner, and he immediately set to rummaging through whatever drawers he could open from the warped chests and cabinets were there.

"Ah!" he said at length, holding up two items in triumph.

"A rock," Buffy said, her voice flat. "And a curly piece of metal. Yay you."

He huffed out an exasperated breath.

"This is flint," he said, brandishing his left hand, "and this is steel," holding up the other. At her blank gaze, he continued slowly, "…with which one makes fire?"

"Oh, good!" she said with fervor, and started grabbing logs from the floor, dumping them into the fireplace. "I'm freezing."

He watched for a moment before his hand on her arm halted her.

"Allow me," he said, his tone especially gallant. "You have endured quite enough toil today."

Buffy stared up at him a long moment.

"I'm doing it all wrong, aren't I? And you're just pretending to be considerate so you can do it right."

He nodded and she tossed the last log in before letting her shoulders slump.

"Go and see if the pump still works," he directed, pointing to the big stone sink against the far wall.

Obediently, Buffy went to it. She grasped the handle and gave it a hard shove downward. With a shriek of protesting metal as rust was ruptured, after a shuddering gasp, a foul-smelling gout of reddish water spewed from it.

"Keep at it," he said, and so she worked the pump for a full minute until the water coming out was clear.

And then she wanted nothing so much as a long, long drink of it. She was sure she'd have given up the treasure of the Sierre Madre if only she could have a few mouthfuls. However, as soon as she stopped pumping to cup her hands under the spigot, the water trickled to a stop.

"Help," she whimpered. "Thirsty."

On his knees before the hearth, clacking the bit of steel against the flint in hopes of catching the firewood alight, he turned to her with a fearsome scowl on his face.

"Can you not see—" But then his anger faded in the face of Buffy's pitifulness. Heaving a deep sigh, as if he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, he stood and walked to the sink. "You," he said, looming tall over her, "are a very vexing woman."

"It's part of my charm," was her reply. "Now, pump," she ordered, pointing to the contraption as if he couldn't have figured it out for himself.

He obeyed, and soon Buffy was cupping and drinking, cupping and drinking. It was far too soon, in her humble opinion, when he stopped her.

"Too much and you'll become ill," he said, and motioned that she pump for him. She did, and soon he was drinking as well.

"Nectar," he declared it, and she was inclined to agree, but that could have been more because of the way one drop of water escaped his mouth and trickled down his throat. She watched it roll over his skin, watched as it got lost in the light stubble that was beginning to make its appearance, and felt a tingling in her lady bits.

 _Funny_ , she thought.  _I've gone for over a year without being turned on, and now since meeting him, it's happened twice_. It was almost enough to make a girl consider doing something completely rash and impractical.

"What are you looking at?" he asked then, bringing his hand up to where she was staring. "Oh. My apologies, Miss Summers, for my disheveled appearance. I wasn't mmph—"

His words were cut off, of course, because she was kissing him.


	2. Chapter 2

He remained still for a few moments, during which Buffy felt her heart begin to sink, and then began to respond. His hands were hesitant as they came up to wrap around her, but once they were, they locked tightly, holding her against him so she was almost breathless.

But that could have been the kiss, because— _Boy howdy!_  thought Buffy—once he decided he was interested, he took control of it, parting her lips almost roughly and slipping his tongue into her mouth with a boldness that both thrilled and surprised her. She hadn't thought the severe old chap had it in him, to be honest.

She wriggled until her arms were able to slither up between them and wrap around his neck, clinging to him as if she were afraid he'd disappear, and kissed him back. Her fingers went to his hair, burying themselves in it and massaging his scalp, and he growled against her lips. Buffy felt a jolt of arousal shoot from that faint vibration against her mouth right down to her general pelvic area.

"Did you just growl?" she asked, pulling away to look at him. His eyes were heavy-lidded but bright, and he looked as surprised as she imagined she did.

"So it would seem," he replied, and removed her arms from around him by grasping her wrists and tugging.

She allowed him to peel her off of him and stepped back, touching her kiss-bruised mouth with her fingertips. "What just happened there?" she asked after a moment. "One minute, water, the next, smoochies."

His eyebrow rocketed skyward. "You have only to ask yourself why you initiated… _that_ , madam. I have no idea what brought it on."

Her face pinkened. "It was… water drop… throat. It was a… thing. Oh, shut up," she said, feeling cross. "Not like you didn't get into it after a while."

"I am a healthy male, madam, and you are an extraordinarily attractive young woman. My reaction was normal and logical."

"You sound like a Vulcan," she groused, and crossed her arms over her chest. The action served only to push together and plump up her (admittedly meager) cleavage, and his gaze went to it like a homing beacon. "Hah."

He dragged his eyes back to her face. "That, too, is a normal reaction. But I suggest that if we are to be here for any period of time, we forgo that sort of activity. It will only lead to… an uncomfortable situation arising."

He seemed to realize what he'd said when he saw the delighted look cross her face, and actually blushed a little. "Er. As it were." He brushed by her to return to the fireplace, and had a fire going after another few minutes whilst Buffy watched.

"We never did introduce ourselves," she said after the little blaze was going merrily. “I’m Buffy Summers.”

He stood, frowning as his knees popped, and looked down at her. He was even taller than Angel, she realized, and towered over her. She should have hated it, except that she kind of liked it.

To her surprise, he bowed and took her hand, touching his lips to her fingers. "Commodore James Norrington, at your service."

"Still with that commodore stuff, huh?" she quipped. When he released her hand, she turned so the heat from the meager fire could warm up her cold, wet back and butt. Gazing down at her hands, she saw that her skin was very pale, despite her new tan, and the beds of her fingernails had a faint purplish tint.

"We have to get out of these clothes or we'll get sick," she said without thinking, then looked up when the silence  _changed_.

He was watching her again with that eagle-stare, and she felt like she'd already stripped naked.  _No secrets with this guy,_  she thought shakily.  _He can see right through you._  

"At my service, huh?" she said.

He only rolled his eyes.

"Search the rest of the house for dry clothing," he told her. "I'll see if there's not something to boil water in, and we can wash the salt water off."

Damn. He was practical. Probably for the best, but try telling that to her libido, which was currently dancing the Macarena at being awoken after slumbering so long. She roamed through the house, poking in drawers and armoires until she located a nightgown-looking thing in one of the tiny servant's rooms for herself, and a pair of very fine-looking pants in a buff-color matte leather. They looked, were Buffy to be completely honest, a tad too small for someone of his height but then she thought of him in snug leather pants and could actually  _feel_  her eyes glazing over.

"Yes," she said aloud, draping them over her arm, "these will do very well."

She found a dark blue shirt of rough linen in another servant's room, and was delighted to find that one drawer was brimming with socks, warm, if scratchy, woolen socks, and her frosty toes practically begged her to put a pair on right that moment, but it appeared that James had a prudent influence on her—she knew her sodden dress would only drip down onto the socks until they were just as wet.

Sighing, she began to search for other things. There was a basin-type washstand thing with a big bowl and pitcher, and on the little counter beside it was a shallow dish filled with hardened brown goo. Sniffing it, she was happy to find that it smelled somewhat soap-like. Not far away was a little wooden comb—only missing three teeth—and even a straight razor.

Another drawer revealed a stack of white linen squares like big dinner napkins, and Buffy figured they could use them as towels. Piling everything into the bowl of the washstand, she debated including the razor but then remembered about the stubble and the water droplet and couldn't suppress an evil little smile as she dropped it—by accident, of course—behind the dresser.

Then she hoisted the washstand up and carried it back to the kitchen. James had found a large, battered cauldron and filled it with water, but couldn't lift it to the fire. Buffy grasped the handle and matter-of-factly hoisted it over, hooking it over the metal arm jutting out over the flames. Not too eager to see his dismay at her unusual strength, she peeped from under her lashes, only to find him watching her with perplexity and not the slight fear she'd expected.

"You will, of course, explain that to me in good time," was all he said before turning to look through her gleanings. "Resourceful," he murmured upon finding the soap and comb. "I wonder, if I send you out for a joint of beef and Yorkshire pudding, will you come back with it?"

"If I knew what Yorkshire pudding was, I just might," she replied, cheerful, taking the comb from him and plunking herself down before the fire. With a grimace, she began the arduous task of picking the hideous snarls from her hair in anticipation of washing it.

He watched for a moment before picking up a tin and shaking it. "Whilst you were gone, I found tea."

"Did you find milk and sugar, too?" Buffy asked hopefully, then winced at a particularly bad knot at the back where she couldn't see.

"Sadly, no," James said. He put the tin down, sitting beside her and taking the comb from her hand. Her frown melted away as he started to work the snarl out for her. "You'll just have to brave it, plain."

Buffy didn't reply; the feel of his hands in her hair was too soothing, and her crappy night's sleep snuck up on her. She jolted awake just as she would have tipped over, and found him lowering her to the ground.

"I suppose a nap before bathing would not be amiss," he told her, then hesitated before continuing. "Lay down, rest your head upon my leg. I'll comb the rest." She hurried to comply and managed to beam a smile at him before passing out.

Her dreams were unsettled and her rest not very restful, and she was almost glad when he gently shook her awake. "The water is warm enough for bathing now," James said, and she sat up. He'd removed his Ben Franklin coat and now looked just like a swashbuckler in his pants and boots and poofy shirt and sexy stubble.

Buffy took the washstand into the pantry, then returned to where James was filling the pitcher with equal parts of cold and hot water. Hurrying back to the pantry, she poured the basin full and stripped her still-damp clothes off, splashing herself with the warm water without care for the huge puddle she was making under her feet.

The soap lathered about as well as Lava bars, and Buffy was sure her hair was going to jump off her head in protest at its harshness, but at least she was  _clean_. Patting herself dry with one of the linen squares, then rubbing as much moisture from her hair as she could, she reached for the nightgown and delighted in the feel of dry, if musty, cotton gliding over her skin. After the sand and seawater of the past day it felt like heaven to no longer be damp and salty anymore.

Then her stomach rumbled, and she wished she weren't so damned hungry.

Carrying the bowl to the kitchen, she poured the grayish water down the sink and sluiced some clean water from the pump into it, then handed it to James.

"You look even more like an angel in that," he said, nodding his head at the voluminous nightgown she wore. "Ironic, that."

Buffy would have said something snarky in return but then remembered just how small the pants were that she had gotten for him.

"Hmm," was her noncommittal reply as she shoved the garments at him, and reached for a pair of the lovely socks.

Sitting before the fire, she rested her chin on her drawn-up knees and stared at the flames, wondering why she wasn't more upset by this whole ordeal. It wasn't every day that you got chucked into the 17th century, after all. Not that stranger things hadn't happened to her… perhaps that was why she was so calm. Stranger things  _had_  happened to her; on a scale of 'freaksome' from 1 to 10, this was barely a blip on her radar.

There were no demons, vampires, evil sorcerers, geeky losers, or anything that called for her to fulfill her destiny as a Slayer in any way. Just a bit of weirdness, which was par for the course, really. And it wasn't like she was suffering; now that she was warm and dry, there was only the issue of food to worry about. And she was sure there would be fruit somewhere in the vicinity; by the time things righted themselves, as the universe always saw fit to do on its own schedule, Buffy was sure she'd be full up on her required fiber and vitamin C intake.

And then there was James.

She thought of the water drop's leisurely journey down his throat, and how she'd wanted to follow it with her tongue; a flash of heat leapt in her chest and speared downward. Then she thought of his hands, so gentle on her head as he'd combed her hair, and the heat jogged north again to settle quite firmly in the area of her heart.

 _How stupid is this?_  she raged to herself.  _You cannot have a crush on the 17th century commodore guy. It's lunacy. It's idiocy. It's_ _—_

James reentered the room then, clad in the (much too snug) trousers and the blue shirt, unbuttoned. His clean hair fell in a rakish wave over his right eyebrow and he gave an embarrassed little  _eep_  when he realized his chest was showing. The firelight gleamed off the pale, hair-dusted muscles revealed between the open panels of the shirt, and Buffy gaped whilst her brain finished,  _It's a really, really good idea._

She was just about to open her mouth and say something incredibly stupid when James' stomach rumbled. He blushed a little harder and Buffy found herself thinking,  _Aw, cute,_  before mentally slapping herself. She settled for watching as he brewed tea and poured it into two chipped earthenware mugs. She made a face at the taste—bitter, weedy—but finished it, knowing she needed some warmth in her.

"Any possibility for food?" she asked, trying to make her eyes as big and pitiful as possible.

"There's nothing but moldy flour, full of weevils," he began with a smirk, "so unless you are secretly a master baker, I doubt—" He stopped when she burst into laughter. "And what is so amusing, Miss Summers?"

"Master baker," she gasped, leaning against him as she laughed. "Get it? Master baker?" No, he most certainly didn't get it, and furthermore, didn't understand why a respectable position was so hilarious… "Position!" she wheezed, and began to hiccup.

"You are a  _very_  vexing woman, Miss Summers," was all he said, sipping at his tea.

"Leave me alone," she said. "I'm in a mood."

After a while, he commented, "I believe there is hardtack in the pantry, if you are hungry enough."

She stared at him. "And what is hardtack? Do I even want to know?"

He only grinned and stood, going to fetch it. "Also known as sea biscuit, it's single-handedly responsible for the lion's share of constipation among His Majesty's Navy."

"You make it sound so tempting," Buffy said with fake awe, accepting the flat, rock-hard cracker. She tapped it on the floor, then studied the surface; not a crumb had been shed by the hardtack, but there were a few new dents in the planks… "How do you eat this without breaking your teeth?"

"You don't," was his reply. "These are all wooden." And he shot a wide smile at her, displaying a goodly number of his supposed wooden teeth.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "And you say  _I'm_  vexing," she grumbled.

"You  _are_  vexing."

"At least I don't make stupid jokes,"

"No, you just laugh at them," James parried. "Master baker?" He quirked an eyebrow at her and she realized that he was quite aware of why she thought it was funny.

A little embarrassed, and a lot tired, Buffy relaxed against him and buried her face against his shoulder.

"I'm better now," she protested. "I don't think it's all that funny anymore."

He paused, stiffening a moment at her impromptu cuddling, before relaxing once more. "You put my soul at ease, to hear that," James said, his tone dry, even as he slowly wrapped his arm around her waist. "You are sure you don't want your… delicious meal?"

Drowsy, Buffy mumbled unintelligibly and snuggled deeper into the warmth. James sighed. "That would appear to be a 'no', then," he said to himself. "Miss Summers," he said louder, jostling her head with his shoulder, "are any of the beds yet intact?"

She managed to say something he was able to interpret as "upstairs" and he hoisted her slight frame into his arms. It was amazing that she could be as strong as she was, and yet seem to weight no more than a feather. He carried her upstairs, and went through room after room until he found one where the bed had all three things he considered a necessity: a mattress, no water damage, and bedding. He thought it might have belonged to Governor Swann himself, if the opulent hangings over the head of the bed and monogrammed linens were anything to judge by.

Peeling back the covers, he noticed they smelled a bit mildewy but there was nothing for it—it was either ignore it, or sleep elsewhere, and he didn't much like the idea of this fragile-seeming thing with her bones pressed to the hard floor for several hours. James deposited her on the bed and pulled the covers up, but she latched her hand onto his sleeve and wouldn't let go.

"Don't leave me," she said, very clearly, and he looked up from her grip on him to see she was awake, her eyes clear. She knew what she was asking.

He puzzled for the briefest moment over his reaction to her. It was insupportable, the easy manner in which they interacted, the familiarity with which she tended to drape herself across him, and especially that kiss… He was sure he'd never felt such a quick leap of desire within himself for anyone before. One part of him, the correct Naval officer part, was horrified at the liberties they'd taken of each other in just the scant hours since he'd woken, but the other part was quite comfortable with her, as if it were meant to be somehow.

James blinked, and nodded to her, walking around to the other side of the bed. He didn't remove any clothing, just slid between the sheets, and as thought it had been rehearsed, she turned and curled into him at the same time he reached for her. She fit against him like she'd been made for just that purpose, and he felt a queer tightening in his chest that had no place being there, no place at all.

 _This was madness_ , he thought with a moment's fear _. This was unheard of. This was_ _… sheer delight,_  he finished, and allowed a small smile as her arm wrapped around his waist and she nuzzled her cheek against his chest.

Then his own fatigue overcame him, and he slept.

Buffy woke a few hours later and was surprised to actually be comfortable. Her pillow was moving in a steady rhythm, and also seemed to be emitting soft snores. Lifting her head, she saw that she'd been sleeping sprawled all over James. By the tightness of his arms around her, he didn't seem to mind too much, and she felt a stupid smile spread across her face before she could stop it.

He was cute while he slept, she thought. His face relaxed, and his mouth loosened so that his lips weren't pressed up all tight. They were well-shaped, when not all squinched up, and she remembered with great fondness how nice they'd felt against her own. So nice, in fact, that she wanted to repeat the experience.

"Were you going to stare at me all day," he asked, not opening his eyes, "or had you planned on saying something anytime soon?"

 _Hmph_. Just for that, he deserved no warning. Buffy pounced on him with great glee, sliding her fingers deep into his hair as she sealed her mouth over his. He went rigid with shock at first, but right away recovered his equilibrium to return her kiss, _with interest,_ she thought in pleasure as he slipped his tongue along hers, lapping softly at her palate and making her toes curl inside the lovely, warm socks.

Buffy squirmed, wanting to feel more of his warm, strong body against hers. She moved her legs restlessly until her knee slid over his thigh and brushed against what seemed, at first contact, to be a considerable and impressive amount of arousal.

"Wow," she mumbled against his lips. "All for me?"

Her words were like a dash of cold water; he pulled back, pushing himself to sit up, and leaned back against the rickety headboard.

"Miss Summers," he began in what she just  _knew_  was going to be a speech of paralyzing boredom, "You must see how impossible this situation is… we barely know each other, let alone marriage—"

"Whoa, whoa," Buffy interrupted, pulling herself up to kneel at his side. "Who said  _anything_  about marriage?"

James gazed at her with patience. "Miss Summers, just being here with you—even had we not kissed, or slept in the same bed—would demand we wed. If we go our separate ways after rescue, and remain quiet, then none shall be the wiser and life can progress as it would have before we met."

He paused, squelching a pang of dissatisfaction at the idea of never having known her.

"But should we… become one, in that way, I will not be able to forget what has occurred. I would feel honor-bound to make you my wife."

Buffy frowned. "That's not how it is where I'm from," she said, her voice soft. "We can have sex with anyone we want, without repercussions. It doesn't have to mean marriage." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "There doesn't even have to be love in it." Her eyes met his, hazel burning into blue. "James, I'm not asking for a lifelong commitment. It's just that… I like you. And I haven't liked a man in a long time. Haven't trusted one enough to want to be with him.

"I think… we've been given this time together as a gift, James," she continued, and reached gingerly out to touch his arm, just taking comfort from the heat and strength of it under her fingertips. "It's going to end soon, and I don't want to waste any of it. Can't we just enjoy each other while we're together?"

He stared at her a long moment, and as the second ticked by, her heart sank more and more. She dropped her head a little, feeling dejected, and was about to leave the bed when James grabbed her upper arms and hauled her against him. His mouth closed over hers, and when she gasped in a breath his tongue was there to taste and tease.

"So, that'll be a yes, then?" she managed to say when the kiss ended.

He maneuvered them so they were lower in the bed, and rolled on top of her. "Yes," he said, and kissed her some more.

"Oh, good," she managed to say, and started tugging on his shirt. It came off, then her nightgown, then his trousers. Finally, they were skin-to-skin, and each sighed at the sensation of it. His mouth latched onto her nipple, worrying it until it stood in a stiff peak, and her hands on his head held him there, holding him close as she twined her legs with his.

His arousal throbbed against her thigh, and  _needing_  to taste it, Buffy flipped them over, smiling down at him in a very womanly fashion before kissing down his body.

"What are you… oh, mmm… doing?" he demanded, breathless, as her mouth found his nipples reciprocating with lazy swipes of her tongue before continuing lower. "There's no need for… ooh… that sort of thing."

Slunk low in the bed, her hair tumbling around her face, which hovered right over his groin, Buffy's smile was sex incarnate.

"I think there's every need for it," she replied, and took him in her mouth. James' back bowed, and his hands came to clasp her head, arching almost helplessly into the wet heat of her mouth.

But she didn't want their first time to end so soon, and stopped when he would have reached his peak. He thrashed in frustration for a moment before he came back to himself.

"You," he declared, grabbing her and pressing her to the bed to cover her with his body, "are a tease." And he began pulling on her nipples with his teeth, gently at first, then more firmly.

"Only a little," she gasped, her own back arching.

"Don't you know what happens to teases?" James inquired, his hand sliding down her body to push between her legs. His middle finger glided with ease through the slickness he found there, and Buffy bit her lip to keep from shrieking at the direct contact that sent a bolt of pleasure lancing through her.

"What happens to teases?" she managed to ask, somehow.

"They have to taste their own medicine," he replied, and slid down some more. He parted her thighs, then her folds, before leaning in to have a taste of his own. His touch was tentative at first, and clumsy—it was clear he'd never done this before, and Buffy felt a fierce surge of pride that she'd been the one to inspire him to it.

Then he groaned.

"Dear God," he whispered in awe. And he fell to it like a man possessed, much to Buffy's immense joy: lapping, lashing, licking, rubbing, suckling. Whatever he lacked in experience, he more than made up in enthusiasm, and it was only an embarrassingly short period of time later that her cries of pleasure were echoing off the tattered silk that upholstered the walls.

He crawled back up her body as she lay there, gasping like a landed fish and trying to put the pieces of her head back together. He brought up his hand to wipe his mouth, but Buffy drew his face down for a kiss, shamelessly licking her own flavor from his lips before slipping her tongue into his mouth for a deeper kiss.

James quivered against her, almost painfully excited at her actions as he thrust against the soft flesh of her belly. Buffy clasped her legs around his waist and rubbed herself enticingly against him, knowing the friction of passion-wet curls against his erection must be driving him insane.

"Now, now," she chanted, and obligingly, he pressed himself into her.

Ah, there it was… the slow, inexorable penetration, the feel of flesh parting, expanding, to accommodate him. She had not made love—or even just had sex—with anyone since Spike and it was almost amazing to her to feel the heat of him, the throbbing of his pulse so deep within, once he was seated in full. James stared into her eyes with an expression akin to desperation, and if she'd been able, Buffy would have reeled back at the depth of his passion.

"I want you," he said, a harsh edge to his voice, and began to thrust.

"You've got me," she replied on a sigh as he filled her again and again.

James slid one arm under her back, gathering her close, and cupped the back of her head with the other.

"I  _want_  you," he repeated, then buried his face against her neck, moving with almost heartbreaking earnestness against her.

Buffy felt tenderness rise up within her, warring with the pleasure that rippled outward from her center, threatening to shatter her with their intensity as they grew.

"You've got me," she said again, and wrapped her legs higher and tighter around him, feeling him go just a little deeper than before. She wanted to take all of him inside, just surround his entire body with hers.

"If only," he muttered in her ear, and she realized she must have been speaking out loud.

The sensations roiling through her began to take on a more frantic feel, and she moved against him with more purpose as her goal shimmered in the distance, elusive, just out of reach.

"Come with me," James gasped. "Hurry, I can't last much more. You feel too good."

Buffy took his hand and guided it down, showing him how to use his thumb to help her. He was a smart man, and caught on right away.

It wasn't long before the tension in Buffy snapped and her entire world whittled down to an endless alternating of spasm and release, spasm and release. Blinded, almost deafened, she was dimly aware of his choked gasp at the feel of her climax around him, and with a last savage thrust, he followed her. James moaned brokenly into her hair, his hips pummeling hers, his arms shaking around her.

Buffy panted, then realized the reason she was having so much trouble breathing was because she was holding James just that tightly. She loosened her grasp and they both sucked in great lungfuls of air.

"Sorry," she said, a little sheepish. "I forget my own strength sometimes."

"I forgive you," he replied, gracious as ever, and licked a bead of sweat from her throat. "That was…" He trailed off, apparently at a total loss for words.

"Yeah," she agreed dreamily, and pulled him down for a kiss. "It really was."

"Can it always be like that?" He shifted so his weight wasn't crushing her, rolling to his back and pulling her across him. He seemed almost shy about the question.

Buffy realized that since he wasn't married— she hoped, maybe should have asked before this point— he'd probably never had sex with anyone twice in a row; that the entirety of his experience had likely been with prostitutes. She couldn't say she was thrilled at the knowledge, and— again, should have asked before initiating all the rowdy sex— really, really hoped he didn't have some unfortunate social disease.

"I wouldn't know," she replied when she remembered he was expecting an answer from her. "My first, I loved him, but we only had the one time together. The second just used me, and threw me away afterward." Yes, she was quite aware of how bitter she sounded, thank you. "The third loved me, and I wanted to love him, and the sex was decent, it just wasn't…" Her voice trailed way, sad now. "It was just decent. The only time there was any real passion was that time we were trapped in the frat house, and that was all artificial… and you don't know what I'm talking about."

No, he did not. But he sure as hell wasn't happy to hear her recount these tales.

"Three?" he demanded. "You have been with  _three_  men?"

She colored a little. "Um, actually, four. No, five now, counting you."

"Five?" James sounded outraged.

Her eyes narrowed, a living 'warning! danger!' sign.

"If you even think of calling me a name for having four lovers before you, I promise, you will be so very sorry."


	3. Chapter 3

James glared right back at her. "I do not like the idea of anyone's hands on you but mine," he growled, possessive. "What about the fourth?"

She shivered to hear that growl again, and began trailing her fingers down his belly as she wondered how much time he'd need to recover and have another go. She also liked the idea of his possessiveness; it struck a chord within her, that he'd want her to be his exclusively.

"He… helped me through a bad time in my life. I wasn't kind to him, even though he was always good to me. I'm not proud of how I treated him. We worked things out in the end, and I'm glad we came to understand each other before…"

"Before what?" James twined his fingers with hers, his other hand soothing as it stroked up and down her arm, knowing instinctively that she needed comfort.

"Before he died," Buffy whispered. "He died doing something incredibly, stupidly heroic." A tear rolled down her nose to drip onto his chest.

"Did you love him?" James asked, hands never pausing, always petting, soothing.

"Not the way he deserved. He ended up being a good person. Maybe the best friend I ever had," she replied after a moment in which she forced the lump from her throat. "No one else has ever loved me so unconditionally, not even my mother. He saw all the ugly bits of me, and still…"

His arms tightened around her, and he pulled until she lay atop him, not a bit of her touching the mattress beneath them.

"Then he gave you a precious gift," James said at last. "A friend like that is found perhaps once in a lifetime." His hands slipped down, cupping a buttock in each, and squeezed before using his grip to pull her tighter against him, his arousal reawakening between them.

Buffy's legs slid down until she was straddling him, her cheek still pillowed on his chest, and she shifted until he slid into position and she could take him inside.

"Ah," she sighed in relief, sinking down until he was completely sheathed within her body.

James' eyes fluttered closed as a languorous sense of completion filled them both. The first time had been frantic, the rushed pursuit of a goal. This time was all comfort and soothing, with soft, wet kisses that lasted forever and gentle, almost imperceptible movements. Buffy's climax did not surge over her so much as ooze, thick and sweet and heady.

"Oh," she breathed, riding out the pleasure, rocking slowly as she gripped him in rolling waves. He said nothing at all, simply squeezed his eyes shut and undulated his hips, serpent-like, as ecstasy took him. And when it was over, neither said a word, content to lie there in the other's embrace.

They slept.

When they awoke, the sun was setting and both were ravenous. Rain still pounded against the roof and walls, a constant tattoo that Buffy had long since gotten used to hearing in the background. Dressing, they returned to the kitchen and James rummaged through the pantry in hopes of finding something to eat. He returned with the triumphant air of the successful hunter.

"Dried beef and beans," he told her. "With this and the hardtack, we'll have enough food to last until the storm passes and we can search for some fruit."

Buffy wasn't too thrilled with the idea of eating reconstituted meat, old lentils, and the rocks pretending to be crackers, but he was so proud of himself for providing for them that she couldn't stop the big and foolish grin that filled her face. They helped each other cook in companionable near-silence, and when their so-called "stew" was finally ready to burble away for an hour or so, James suggested they go see how the storm was doing.

On the deep rear veranda, shielded from the worst of the receding hurricane but for a few spritzes of rain, it was clear that the storm would pass within a day or two. The rain and heavy cloud cover made the world seem wrapped in cotton wool, like there was no one but her and James, and she found she liked the way that felt.

His arm came around her hesitantly. There was something very appealing about his uncertainty with her; he was obviously a man used to being in command. Buffy wasn't sure, exactly, what a commodore was or how it ranked but if it were like a captain, he likely had a lot of responsibilities and let's face it, the English even of her time weren't known for their warm and cuddly natures around new people. She didn't imagine English people of three hundred years ago to be much more with the snuggling.

Buffy sighed and leaned into his embrace, enjoying the warmth of his body against her as she looped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. Together, they stood and watched the rain until he remembered the stew, and they raced back to the kitchen just before it would have burnt. Divvying it up, they spooned it up with the dented utensils they unearthed in another drawer, and Buffy was surprised to find that, whilst not exactly award-winning cuisine, it didn't suck too much, either. And even if it had, she was too hungry to complain.

Once full, they washed up their few dishes and James placed a plate on top of the pot of leftover stew in hopes of keeping bugs out. Buffy suggested they search for more clothing, and thus began a scavenger hunt through the house. James found a considerable amount of female undergarments, whilst Buffy was able to locate an impressive number of poofy shirts. She was oddly attracted to them, holding them up against her to see if they'd fit. It made James laugh until she stripped off her nightgown and pulled one of the poofy shirts over her head.

"What do you think?" she asked, modeling it for him as his face became intent and his eyes narrowed with laser precision on her bare legs and the glow of her browned skin through the fine white linen. "Is it me?"

"Yes," he replied, coming to his knees before her, his fingers already busy with the lacing down the front of her poofy shirt. "But I think you'd look even better—" he parted the shirt's placket, revealing her small, uptilted breasts, "like this." And he closed his mouth over one nipple whilst filling his hands with the warm, soft mounds.

Her hands wound in his hair immediately, and she stared down at the sight of him making love to her breasts, burning the image in her memory. All day her sense of foreboding, that this couldn't last forever, had grown stronger. She didn't know how much longer they'd have together, and was rather surprised at how reluctant she was to give this up.

Pulling gently on his hair, Buffy tugged James' face up for a kiss. Their lips met softly at first, then with more passion until they were almost ferocious in their need to taste and touch each other. He sat back on his heels, pulling her to straddle him, and she worked frantically to open his trousers. Once he was free, his hands on her waist guided her down until she took him deep, in one thrust.

Both moaned at the sensation, heads falling back and eyes closing in bliss. They moved together in silence for a long moment, until James spoke.

"I want you to know," he ground out as he withdrew, "that even though people are more free in your time," the tip of his shaft slid between her folds, just kissing her entrance, "should you get with child because of this, I will be more than pleased to marry you."

Buffy blinked, her head clearing a little as she tried to figure out what he was saying. She was impossibly touched by this declaration of his, and felt a sensation well up in her chest that had little to do with the marvelous ripples of pleasure spreading outward from her center.

"Thank you," she replied, breathless. It was far-fetched, of course—they scarcely knew each other. Some marvelous sex and snuggling did not a lifetime commitment make. But it was the thought that counted, wasn't it?

"I can't get pregnant," she told him then. She thought he should know.

He stopped moving; she pouted. "You are barren?"

"No," she replied, wiggling on his lap to get him to go again. "I take a… medicine… to regulate my period, and it prevents me from getting pregnant, too."

"So, you only have as many children as you wish?" His eyes were bright with curiosity, and she sighed to realize that her new lover was one of those _thinking_ men, who liked learning new things.

"We can discuss it later," she told him, exasperated. "Biology later, sex now."

And she flexed her interior muscles around him, moaning at the feeling of hard fullness sunk into her. His moan followed a second later, and he sealed his mouth over hers, all thoughts of birth control forgotten. Her tongue in his mouth imitated the motion of his shaft inside her, and it wasn't long before their frantic motions culminated.

Once again, James muttered, "I want you," over and over, as if he could not possibly get enough of her. Buffy just wrapped her arms around his shoulders and relished the feel of their skin sliding against each other, thanks to the sweat, and held on as his desire overwhelmed them both. She couldn't get over how different he was in bed (or on the floor, as the case might be)—passionate to the point of inhibition, whereas when they were both clothed and vertical, he was cool and restrained.

After a while, their limbs were starting to cramp from the strange position they were in, and Buffy slid off him with a pang of regret.

"I'm hungry again," she said, "but not so eager to eat more Shoe Leather Surprise."

"There were some orange trees here, if I recall correctly," he said, combing back his hair with fingers that still trembled a bit. "Perhaps we can get some, if you don't mind going out in the rain again.”

"As long as you warm me up later," Buffy said, smiling, and reached out a hand to help him to his feet. James took it and stood, looming close over her as he seemed to enjoy doing, a half-smile on his face. He came within a hair's breadth of kissing her, and her lips had already parted in anticipation, when he stepped back.

"I think that can be arranged," he replied, smirking at her expression of outrage. She retaliated by pinching his butt as she swept by him on the way back to the kitchen. He, of course, felt honor-bound to avenge himself with a considerable goose and then they were running all around the house after each other until, exhausted, they flopped onto the velvet-upholstered divan in what James called the "receiving room".

A cloud of dust billowed up around them, and they coughed, waving their hands in the air to dispel it a little. Then James lay back against the divan's sloping arm, drawing Buffy to lean against him, and sighed.

"It is odd," he said, "how freely I am behaving here with you."

"Not exactly the loosest guy at the party, huh?" she asked, curling against him and idly twining her fingertips in his chest hair.

"Hardly." He fell silent a long moment. "I suppose it is because none of my men are here to see me act foolish. I do not have to be the Commodore here." He looked down at her with a mixture of fondness and amusement. "You don't even know what a commodore is."

"I do so!" Buffy exclaimed, raising up to glare at him. "Almost."

"Yes, your encyclopedic knowledge of military nomenclature is very impressive," James replied, his tone arid. Then he winced when she thumped him in the chest. "Behave yourself, madam," he admonished, pushing her head to rest on his shoulder once more, and dropping a kiss to her crown. "If I may continue?" An unladylike snort was her only response.

"It is wearing, sometimes, having a fleet of ships under one's command," he mused aloud. "Having a thousand men look to me for guidance, knowing their lives are in my hands."

"Yes," Buffy replied, her voice soft. "You don't know which of your orders is going to send some of them their deaths, and knowing you're doing your best doesn't make it any easier. Even winning doesn't make it easier. Not when you're burying them. They're still dead, and it's still your fault."

"I always think, after an engagement," James said, after squeezing her hand in empathy, "that if I had done something differently, would this one have survived? Or that one?"

Buffy remembered all the Potentials who had died battling The First.

"Yes," she whispered. "But I also know that I did the best I could, and even if I had another chance to do it over, I'd do the same thing again. Maybe that hurts most of all."

James raised her hand to his lips, kissing it. "Miss Summers, how is it that you know about the burden of command?" he asked, his eyes curious and bright.

She grinned. "James, considering where you've put your mouth on my body, do you think you can actually call me Buffy instead of Miss Summers?"

His blush started at the base of his throat and flooded both up and down, tinting his entire face and the upper portion of his chest a bright pink.

"Er," he said at last. "Quite." Pause. "Do you think it's possible to be less…"

"Perky?" Buffy inquired. "Charming? Devastatingly attractive?" She punctuated each word with a little kiss along his collarbone. "Nope. Love it or leave it."

"I was going to say 'crass'," James said, and Buffy was amused to see he had actually lifted his nose into the air a little.

"Oh, you're so stuffy!" she almost squealed. "It's just adorable."

"And you are an insolent trollop," he informed her, dumping her off his lap to the floor with a wide grin. "You've corrupted a lord of the Realm, madam. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Buffy pushed back the tumble of hair that had fallen over her face and laughed up at him. "I say, it's about time. You were in thunder need of a little corruption, Mr. Uptight."

He helped her back up; she sprawled comfortably over him, propping her chin on her hands as she looked down at his face. It was a handsome enough face, she supposed—nothing like Angel's broody dark handsomeness, Riley's corn-fed wholesome appearance, or Spike's angular cheekboney good looks, of course, but those rare smiles of his were like the sun coming out after a storm, and his eyes were so piercing and sharp, like blue diamonds.

_And could I_ _ **get**_ _any more like a trashy novel?_ she thought, disgusted with herself.

"You wanted to hear about how I know what it's like to command," she said at last. He nodded, never pausing in twirling a strand of her hair between his fingers. She sighed. "There's this thing, called the Slayer…"

Buffy spoke for hours, telling James everything. He never interrupted, only asking questions when she paused, and held her close when she cried. Which she did. A lot. When she was done, she sniffled and looked up at him.

“You believe me?"

He nodded. "You have not given me reason to think you a liar, or a lunatic. Nor have you shown that much imagination," he added with a tiny smile, dodging when she'd have smacked his shoulder. "And your strength is proof of your story, as well." He nodded, satisfied with his own explanation. "I am sorry that your duty has been such a burden for you; I, at least, chose the course my life has taken. But I admire your commitment to this duty; I know few young women who would have approached it with such dedication."

As praise went, it was rather sedate. But Buffy had the feeling that words of praise did not often come from James often; there was something of the stern taskmaster in him that told her he was notoriously hard to please. She felt a big, stupid smile spread across her face, and buried her face against his chest to hide it.

"Tell me about yourself," she entreated. "You're from England, I figured out that much."

His gentle fingers combed through her hair. "I was born in 1661, the third son of the Viscount of Wentworth. As my father already had his heir and his spare by the time of my arrival, I was free to purchase a commission in the Navy when I came of age. My father did not wish to wait for me to assume command of my own ship, and used his connections to smooth the way for my promotion. I was a captain by my twenty-third birthday.

"As you can imagine, I was none too happy with this, and strove to prove myself deserving of the credentials placed upon me. His Majesty must have agreed; with the Governor's encouragement, he saw fit to make me a full commodore three years ago, at the age of thirty-one."

"That must have pleased your dad," Buffy commented.

"Mm, yes," James said, non-committal. "Not long thereafter, there was some… excitement with some pirates."

He stopped then, shifting to look at her. "Do you know, you're the first person I've ever met to whom I can say this, and be sure you won't think me mad?" He gave a brief laugh. "The pirates were cursed, having stolen Aztec gold. They could not die until the curse was lifted, repaid by blood."

Buffy nodded sagely. "Those old curses can be the pits," she said with sympathy.

"Indeed," was his reply. "In the course of defeating the pirates, I became engaged to the governor's daughter, Elizabeth, but she chose to end the engagement in favor of taking up with a blacksmith."

"Hey, I heard that story!" she said. "Caused a scandal, didn't it?" When he did not answer right away, she studied his face more closely. Though he did not look away, there was a wariness in his eyes that caught her attention. "What happened?" she murmured, stroking his cheek with her fingers.

He took her hand and kissed it. "Have I no secrets from you?" he asked with mock gruffness, though she sensed a thread of sincerity at how easily they seemed to be able to read each other. He sighed. "She only promised to marry me so I would rescue her blacksmith."

Buffy felt anger seep into her, starting with her stomach and flowing to her limbs until she was almost shaking.

"That bitch," she said, her voice low. "You're— and she—" Buffy clamped her mouth shut, eyes flashing. "That bitch," she finished, unable to think of anything else.

James was astonished at her reaction. "It is for the best," he said, watching her carefully. "She truly loves him, and he her. A match between us, when there was no affection, would have been a poor one." He paused, then began rubbing her back in soothing circles. "And if she had not broken our engagement, it is doubtful I would be here with you now."

Buffy felt some of her fury ebb at his words, but still felt out-of-sorts with this Elizabeth ho-biscuit. "Yeah, because these are some fine accommodations," she muttered.

"The company could not be improved," James said, his voice quite serious, "though I cannot say I am much impressed by the cuisine."

She had to smile, touched by his compliment. "They should fire the chef," she said, and wiggled off the divan to stand and stretch. "But not until after we eat tonight. I'm hungry again."

He stood, too. "Again? I suppose I am glad you won't marry me; I'd be beggared by the feeding of you."

But the joke fell flat; both were reminded that their situation was only temporary, and how they were, more and more, disinclined to accept that.

"If I were staying here," Buffy began slowly, "I might marry you." She tugged on the short hem of the poofy shirt she wore to avoid his eyes.

He was silent a long moment. "But you're not staying here," James replied at last. "So let's not think of things that cannot be."

"Right," she said, pulling on a loose thread and pasting a fake smile on her face. "So, the rain's slowed. Who's up for picking oranges?" She turned toward the door, intending to go to the veranda, when he caught her arm and pulled her to him.

"Miss—Buffy," he amended, and she waited for him to continued, but he didn't say anything— just looked at her. Then he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Yes," he said at last. "Let's get some oranges."

An hour and a half-dozen oranges later, their faces and hands were sticky with juice, and they were still damp from their first foray into the rain to pick the fruit when they ran out into the storm a second time to clean off. Returning to the fire-warmed kitchen, they stripped off their soaked garments and dried each other, hands straying, tickling, and teasing until all thoughts of putting on more clothing were abandoned for what James called a "long, lovely snog".

They spent the evening discussing their friends. James told her about Gillette and Groves; though they were his subordinates, they were the closest things he had to friends in the Caribbean. Most wanted to befriend him for his rank and connections; the rest were put off by his stern working demeanor. Buffy realized that he was actually quite lonely, and her heart went out to him. She didn't know what she'd have done all these years without Xander and Willow and Giles. Even Dawn and Tara and Anya and Riley and Spike had been comforting presences, assuring her that she wasn't fighting alone.

She recounted various stories of them to him; he seemed to find Anya's antics especially funny, and she was sure she saw his eyes glimmer with suspicious moisture when she told him of gentle Tara's death.

"I think I would have liked her," he said. "There are too few people in this world so generous with their hearts."

And he expressed admiration for Xander's refusal to be intimidated by his normality in the face of supernatural creatures. "He would make a fine officer, I am sure of it."

As for Giles, James looked intrigued by the wealth of knowledge Buffy said the man possessed, and wondered aloud if Giles knew anything of that mysterious stretch of sea near Bermuda that seemed to be capable of making ships vanish. "I have wondered about it for many years," he admitted.

When their yawns could no longer be ignored, James banked the fire and they went to bed. It felt so natural and right for them to ascend the stairs together, arms looped around each other's waists as they walked in companionable silence, and Buffy couldn't seem to stop smiling. Once in "their" bedroom, they undressed each other and went into each other's arms like it had been choreographed.

His mouth, when she kissed him, tasted of oranges and she reveled in his tall, strong body against her, feeling the excitement that built in him. Her arms around his neck, hands in his hair whilst his were holding her close, Buffy almost reeled at the sheer joy that filled her at that moment.

"I don't want to go back," she said when they pulled apart for breath.

"Don't speak of it," he said, tucking her head against his shoulder and cupping her face in his large hand. It was trembling a little. "You'll just make it harder."

She realized, then, that he was having just as hard a time accepting it as she was. "But it's not enough," she protested, aware she was whining.

"It was a gift," he reminded her. "We are lucky to have any time at all." But he was trying to convince himself, too.

Buffy blinked hard, willing the tears away. "Okay," she said. "I'm not going to waste what time we do have being cranky that there's not more of it."

She stepped away from him and lay back on the bed. Stretching his own nude form along hers, he claimed her mouth in another of his searing kisses.

She was still amazed, after two full days with him, at how his calm and restrained demeanor could shift with startling swiftness to that of passionate lover. Though his skills had been rusty at first, and he'd started out a little inhibited, it hadn't taken long before he'd polished said skills and become a partner who delighted Buffy in every way—there was tenderness, but also a genuine desire to please her.

He didn't want anything from her—Angel had wanted redemption, Riley wanted love. With Spike, she had sometimes felt, with his deep need and adoration, like he was trying to suck the very soul from her.

James wanted nothing more than to be with her, and Buffy felt herself responding to that with a fervor that actually startled her.

"I want you," he was growling in her ear as he pushed deep into her body, and Buffy was moaning and accepting him, kissing him like her life depended on it, and they were moving, moving…

"You have me," she whispered over and over.

In the dark room, he couldn't see her but, Buffy was at home in the dark, and could easily discern the intent expression on his face, the whole-hearted way he gave of himself. There was nothing he held back in any aspect of his life, and she struggled to remember that being here with him was a gift, not a punishment reminding her of what she could not permanently have.

When she came, she didn't even realize she was crying.


	4. Chapter 4

Buffy's dreams were unsettled and confusing. In them, Xander appeared before her, trying to tell her something—he kept banging on a sheet of metal with a hammer, making a horrible racket, and ignoring Willow's yells for him to cut it the hell out.

"But it will bring her home!" he protested, and sent the hammer against the metal with another crash. Giles only pinched the bridge of his nose and gazed at Buffy, imploring, as if she knew what Xander were up to.

She was thus very happy when James woke her the next morning, a mug of steaming-hot tea held out to her.

"I unearthed a pot of honey," he said, "so at least it's sweetened."

She smiled at him, taking the mug gladly, and sipped while studying him. He'd dressed in more of the clothes they'd found in the deserted house, this time rough brown trousers and a tatty green shirt. His hair was combed, but still that errant lock fell over his forehead, and she brushed it back. He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm, that tiny smile on his lips, but he wasn't meeting her gaze.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

By way of answer, James tugged her from the bed and guided her to the window, rubbing a spot clean with his sleeve. In the distance was a dark shape, and Buffy's excellent eyesight easily picked out the blue, white, and red Union Jack flag gracing its tallest mast.

"They have come for me," he said. He sounded tired, and disappointed.

Buffy replaced the mug on the windowsill before she could drop it. "How long before they get here?"

"An hour if I make some sort of signal that I'm here," he said. "Two if I do not."

"What will you do?" Buffy was blinking rapidly, trying in desperation not to let him see how close she was to tears.

James forced a smirk. "Oh, I think I can let them earn their supper and search for me a bit," he told her, pulling her back toward the bed.

They made love again, and again. Each time was tinged with desperation, and their climaxes were almost violent— Buffy writhed against him as pleasure raged through her body, wailing as she came, and James roared like a bull, rearing over her and pounding her into the mattress. The silence that fell after all that noise was almost deafening. Buffy let her hands wander over him, memorizing the shape and feel of his shoulders, belly, thighs; learning anew the raised texture of his scars, tasting the salt of his skin.

Finally they could delay no longer, and James got out of bed. He dressed slowly, and Buffy hated each button as it slipped through the opposite hole, hiding him from her sight.

"What will happen now?" she asked him. "How do I get back?"

"I don't know how you got here to begin with," James said. "I am just glad you did," he added, his voice low, and with a thread of pain in it that made Buffy stand and grab his hands.

Buffy thought hard, and the dream with Xander suddenly started making sense. "There was this big bolt of lightning," she said, memories coming back to her. "It made everything slow down, and I couldn't hear anything… it was weird. Then the thunder came, and I could hear again. I think that's it."

He nodded. "Then you must stay here," he said. "And wait for the lightning that will return you to your time."

Shouts came from the beach, and they looked out the window to find that a skiff had been rowed out from the huge ship parked offshore. A small group of blue-coated sailors clambered out whilst one man, the gold braid on his uniform glinting in the watery sunlight, followed at a more sedate pace.

"That will be Gillette," James said. "I should have known he'd personally come to search." There was much gruff affection in his tone, and he smiled his little half-smile that Buffy was becoming addicted to.

"You should go," she said. "I'll stay here; it'll be easier if we don't have to explain." She pulled in a deep breath, trying to alleviate the pain that was beginning to well up in her chest. "Though I would have liked to meet him."

"What if we are wrong?" he asked. "What if it is not the thunder and lightning that will return you? What if you remain here?"

Buffy considered that possibility. "Then I'll find my way to Kingston somehow," she said, but he was shaking his head even before she'd finished speaking.

"Indeed not. It's several days' rough journey from here to there, even well-provisioned. You'd never make it." He took her shoulders, his hands warm on her bare skin. "I will return in three day's time. If you are still here, I will take you with me to Kingston." His tiny smile widened a fraction. "Though explaining how I returned from Port Royal with a wife will surely take some doing."

 _And hello to the tears,_ Buffy thought upon hearing that. "I hope I don't go back," she said passionately, the declaration only a little diminished by her sniffle. "I hope I stay here."

His fingers tightened on her shoulders. "Think of your sister and friends, Buffy," James said. "No matter how I wish you to stay, you have a duty in your time. It—" His throat seemed to be fighting his speech, for he swallowed and tried again. "It is more important, what you are doing there, than we are."

She swiped at her wet cheeks. He pulled her close, and she went into his arms eagerly, again thrilled at the perfect fit of her diminutive frame against his larger one.

"Please stop," he whispered. "I cannot bear to see you cry. Though I wish I could join you, if I'm honest."

The sailors' voices were getting louder, and Buffy lifted her face from his shoulder to see out the window that Gillette and the men had crested the embankment and were almost to the house.

James stared down at her, his piercing gaze seeming to be memorizing her features. "Buffy," he said, his voice low and urgent. "I will come back for you."

"Good," she said fiercely, hugging him tight again. "You'd better, because if you leave me here in this dump, you won't believe how pissed off I'm going to be."

"I will always want you, Buffy," he muttered against her hair. "Always."

"Commodore?" exclaimed a voice from downstairs. "Sir?"

Buffy pulled back from him, scrubbing at her eyes. "Go," she said. "Hurry."

He stared a moment longer, then gave a firm nod. One last touch of his fingertips to her face, and then he strode from the room, shoulders back and head high. He looked every inch the naval commander in spite of his rough clothes and bare feet.

"I am here, Gillette," she heard him say. Voices were raised in relief, and all too soon James was ushered from the house. Buffy pulled on one of the poofy shirts and crept downstairs, watching as the men scrambled down the embankment toward the beach. Once they were on the sand, she slipped forward, laying on her belly at the edge of the steep hill so she could continue to look without being seen.

James turned around, and Buffy shied back, not wanting him to see how she was face-down on the ground, watching. But he knew she was there, somehow, and their gazes locked one last time when his swept the top of the embankment.

"What is it, sir?" Gillette asked, his round face puzzled, when his commander paused and seemed to stare back toward the house.

"It is… nothing," James replied, and Buffy knew that "nothing" in reality meant "everything". Biting her lip, she managed to keep from crying out as he stepped into the little boat. The oars were manned, and then it was sliding out to sea, taking him away from her. Only when she was sure they wouldn't notice did she stand and make her way back to the house.

Her tea, the tea James had made her, had gone cold. Buffy drank it anyway, crunching the gritty crystals of honey that hadn't had time to melt all the way, and gave a humorless smile when she heard the first rumblings of thunder. Wandering through the house, she touched every piece of furniture they had used; she lay on the divan in the receiving room and wished he lay beside her again.

She finished the oranges they'd gathered. The lightning flashed brighter, and the thunder crashed louder and louder, and when the time seemed right, Buffy went to the bed chamber that would be her hotel room at the resort in three hundred years.

This room was in terrible condition, and she was certain there were bugs in the bed. A strange sense of lethargy overcame her, and she was unable to continue to stand—her knees bent against her will and she slumped to her knees, barely able to drag herself to the wall and prop herself against it. Buffy stared at the weak, cold sunlight that managed to penetrate the heavy cloud cover and filthy windows, and shivered.

The lightning grew closer, the thunder louder, and she wasn't surprised when one bolt seemed to go off right by her head—a crashing, splitting blast of light, and everything went silent, even her heart. Buffy was awash in a sea of white light, breathless, and then there was a single, booming heartbeat as sight and sound returned in a lush wave with the thunder that followed.

Buffy didn't open her eyes right away. Part of her still felt that if she didn't see obviously modern things like the television and phone, she could pretend she was still there, and that James would come for her in a few days, and everything would be good. She knew he was right—damn him—about how she was needed here, but at the moment her entire soul was aching. Only sending Angel to hell had ever hurt this much, and she hadn't been eager to repeat the experience. It sucked just as much now, at the age of twenty-four, as it had when she was seventeen.

Her hands gripped at whatever they could; it turned out to be plush, soft carpeting that hadn't been there when she'd fallen to the floor 300 years earlier. Unable to hide any longer, and opened her eyes and was confronted by the gleaming black surface of the television. She was sitting in a pool of light thrown by one of the electric lamps, and she closed her eyes against the proof she was back in her own time once more, irreparably sundered from James, forever.

Buffy remained in her room the rest of that day. She showered, dressed, ordered food from room service, but didn't feel the sting of the hot water on her skin, nor smell the scent of the shampoo. She didn't taste the tart cherries of the clafouti, nor the tang of the juice squeezed from the oranges grown right there on the resort. Drinking it reminded her of the fruit she'd shared with James, and she replaced the glass on the tray after a single sip.

Her poofy shirt was dirty from laying on the ground, watching James leave, so she washed it in the shower whilst she bathed, then hung it out on her little balcony to dry while she wasted the day slouching around her room. The TV and radio seemed too loud and intrusive, and she realized that even three days pre-technology had gotten her used to not having the constant noise blaring in the background.

But without something to break the silence, all she could think were thoughts of "this time yesterday". It was with great relief that she grew tired enough to go to bed, and she pulled the dry poofy shirt off the balcony railing and then wore it to sleep. The bed felt as large as an ocean with only her in it. She didn't sleep well.

The next morning, she called the front desk to inquire about any missed phone calls. A porter came with a stack of messages for her, of increasing urgency. Giles had become concerned when she'd missed her daily calls for three days in a row, and was on the verge of flying to Jamaica to find her.

Buffy sighed. The last thing she wanted at that moment was to hear a mellow English accent, even if it belonged to her cherished, if often annoying, erstwhile father-figure. She cleared her throat and set her mind to being Perky!Vacationing!Buffy instead of Depressed!Heartsore!Buffy, and punched in his number.

"Giles," Buffy said after the usual pleasantries had been exchanged and she'd managed to convince him that she was not in danger, "I need you to do some research for me."

She could imagine him sitting straighter in his chair, that alert expression coming into his eyes as it always did when a mystery was afoot. "Oh?" he said. "Has something happened?"

"I'll tell you when I know more," was all she'd tell him. "I need you to find out anything you can on Commodore James Norrington." Just saying his name was a relief.

Silence. "Buffy, what is this about?" Giles asked, in a suspicious damn-you-tell-me tone of voice.

"He was born in 1661, the third son of some count guy," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Royal English Navy. He worked in Port Royal, and then Kingston after the earthquake."

"Alright, Buffy," Giles replied after a moment, and she could hear the scratching of a pen on paper. "I'll fax you what I find. What's the number there?"

She read it off the pad on the desk, and hung up after thanking him. Not feeling up to being with anyone, and certainly not able to endure spending time on the beach where they'd "met", Buffy returned to her room and put on her tiny bikini— wondering what James would have thought of it, and imagining his delight in stripping it from her— and lay on the deck chaise on the tiny balcony off her room.

The sun had finally decided to come out, now that all traces of the hurricane were gone, and so it didn't take long for Buffy to doze off in the sunshine, enjoying the feel of heat seeping into her bones. There was a hollowness within her, like when Angel had left her, and when Spike had died. She felt like a piece of her heart had gone missing, and she was bleeding inside.

The blaring of the telephone broke into her half-awake musings. It was the front desk; Giles' fax had come through and would she like to fetch it, or have it brought to her room? Buffy decided it was time to enter the world of the living once more, and said she'd come get it.

She pulled the poofy shirt on over her bikini, jammed her feet into flip-flops, and ambled downstairs. The clerk smiled at her, and she had to work hard to offer a smile of her own. Taking the short stack of papers, she rifled through them on her way to the veranda, taking a seat at one of the little tables whilst looking for the arrows Giles typically used to point out pertinent information. Most of the arrows indicated the same information: basic, bland mention of James being quite the pain in the ass to the pirates of the area, and being the one in charge when the earthquake occurred.

But then she came to the page which bore a particularly emphatic arrow, and Giles' fastidious handwriting in the margin demanding, "I shall expect a full explanation of this immediately!!" The fact that he had used not one but two exclamation points boded ill for Buffy, but she was too busy scanning the page to care about that just then.

_"It is certain that establishment of the British presence in the Caribbean could not have been successful without the sterling efforts of various of its Naval and Marine officers. One such man is of particular note; Commodore James Norrington was in command at the time of the infamous earthquake of 1692. Only having been promoted in February of that year, many were favorably surprised by the efficiency and speed with which he dealt with the disaster. It is commonly believed that his calm thinking and determination are responsible for fully half of the lives saved on that bleak day."_

Buffy's eyes burned with unshed tears; he hadn't, of course, mentioned any of that. But then, he wouldn't have; it was not in his nature to brag about what he simply saw as his duty. Wiping her eyes on the cuff of her shirt, she continued to read.

_"Whilst Commodore Norrington was known as a considerable scourge of piracy throughout the Caribbean, and indeed took it upon himself to not only defend the British colonies against their attacks but also to seek out, through means of intelligence and surveillance, those who flew the Jolly Roger, he also had a long and interesting rivalry with one particular pirate by the name of Captain Jack Sparrow."_

She smiled to remember the distaste and grudging admiration James had expressed for this Jack Sparrow; it was almost as if he were upset at the man for not being able to dislike him.

_"They led each other on a merry chase over the course of two decades, neither quite able to best the other, and thus it is perhaps fitting that they brought about each other's demise. On the morning of 12 August 1713, Commodore Norrington was in command of the Excelsior when it engaged Captain Sparrow, whose ship, The Black Pearl, was notorious for its ruthless and, some said, supernatural success on the high seas._

“ _The battle endured for hours, until both ships were smashed to tinder, and yet neither man would cede victory. Norrington led a party intent on defeating the now-languishing Black Pearl once and for all, and with Captains Gillette and Groves by his side, boarded the pirate vessel."_

Buffy could just see him doing that, sword in hand and high color in his cheeks as he clambered on board to face down the pirate captain, and couldn't help but give a little laugh.

_"His sword fight with Captain Sparrow is the stuff of legends, supposedly enduring almost an hour before they began to tire. Sparrow was the first to strike a critical blow, but Norrington refused to be defeated and followed his nemesis round the ship until he, too, managed a fatal wound, killing Sparrow instantly."_

Her heart was in her throat, reading this; she was proud of him finally defeating his opponent, but felt something akin to panic rise up in her belly at the idea of his being mortally wounded. It made little sense; he was already dead, many years dead in fact, and knowing the _way_ he'd died certainly wasn't going to make him any _less_ dead. Biting her lip to silence the sobs that threatened to burst from her, she forced herself to read on, even as tears coursed down her face.

"A curious note: whilst Norrington lay dying, flanked by his longtime friends Groves and Gillette, his last word is recorded as being "Buffy". This is thought to be a nickname for one Elizabeth Turner, née Swann, to whom the commodore was betrothed for a period of just days in 1692. One marvels at the devotion of a man to a love which had come and gone so swiftly, so many years previous."

At that, Buffy could no longer contain herself; she had to cover her mouth with both hands to keep from wailing aloud. She shuddered, her body wracked with a long, hard sob, and she hunched over the book, crying.

"Miss," said a voice beside her. It sounded remote, as if from a great distance. "Miss, please," it entreated.

Buffy lifted her face from her hands and found the blurry figure of someone, a man, standing beside her. In his outstretched hand he held a napkin, and flapped it gently in her direction. She ignored it and him, burying her face in her hands once more as she began to weep again.

"Please, miss," the man said, and sat in the chair across the table from her. "Take it."

 _Who the hell was he?_ Buffy wondered. Couldn't he let her have a nervous breakdown in peace? She grabbed the napkin and hoped he'd leave her alone.

"I've seen you round the resort for a few days now," he was saying.

 _He's trying to pick me up?_ she wondered, incredulous. Was he insane? Did he have some sort of weird fetish for crying women?

"I can't seem to stop looking at you," he continued, and Buffy began to get truly alarmed. She so didn't need a stalker just then, no matter that his voice was nice and deep, and had a lovely English accent.

Maybe _she_ was insane, because she could have sworn he sounded a little like James.

"It's the oddest thing," he told her, that voice now carrying a note of wonder. "The first time I saw you at the hurricane party, I tried to chat you up, but you weren't feeling well, and left early. All I could think was how I wanted you."

He gave a nervous little laugh, and didn't notice how her crying had stopped all of a sudden.

"Isn't that peculiar? I never go round thinking those sorts of things about women. Nor about men," he hastened to add. "I'm usually far too busy with my career to bother with much socializing at all."

"What work do you do?" she asked, trying to peer through salt-swollen eyes and tears at him.

"I'm an officer in the British Royal Navy." He was peering out over the balcony rail at the brilliant, clear waters stretching out before them, as if the answers he sought were contained within.

“A commodore,” said Buffy after a frozen moment.

“Yes,” he replied absently, still puzzling over bizarre things that had apparently been happening to him lately. "I've been drawn to that stand of palm trees over there for days now. And the minute we arrived here, I insisted my room be changed… I had to have the one at the end of the hall."

 _The governor's bedroom,_ Buffy thought, dazed. Then she clued in to something he'd said. "We?"

"My brothers and I," the man replied. "I had leave coming to me, and we decided to take a holiday. I've always wanted to explore the Bermuda triangle— have been after them for years to go, actually— and for some reason the moment they suggested we take a trip, I knew we had to come to Jamaica. And the moment I heard that The Port Royal Inn used to be the governor's mansion, I knew we had to stay _here_."

Was she hallucinating, or was he starting to look remarkably like James the more her vision cleared after her weep-fest? Buffy scrubbed at her eyes with her fists. Nope, they weren't deceiving her—the hair was a little lighter, a little more reddish, and the eyes were a darker blue, but there was no mistaking that blade of a nose.

"The brothers you came with… they’re the heir and the spare, aren’t they?" she asked, and he seemed startled at the question. “You’re the third son.”

"Indeed," he replied with a tiny half-smile that was eerily familiar. He cocked his head just a bit to the side. “Miss, have you ever experienced a strong case of déja vu?”

Buffy wondered idly if she were having a heart attack; the organ in her chest seemed to be trying to leap out of her body.

 _He came back for me after all,_ she thought, and began to cry once more. The man gazed at her with anguished eyes.

" _Please_ , miss," he said a third time, his voice beseeching. "I cannot bear to see you cry."

"James," she whispered, and he jolted, as if she'd struck him.

"Yes," he answered slowly.

"James _Norrington_ ," she clarified, uncaring of the tears that ran unchecked down her face as she stared at him, hands stretching across the table to touch him. "From Wentworth."

He reached out to her, his hands warm and gentle as they clasped her cold ones and rubbed. "Yes," he confirmed, apprehensive.

"You're James Norrington, commodore in the Royal Navy, third son of the Viscount of Wentworth," she said, feeling almost idiotically giddy as thoughts raced through her head, amazement and joy and disbelief pinging back and forth like pinballs. “And you want me.”

A faint tinge of pink rose up from his throat. "Yes," he murmured, his gaze flitting away but always returning to her, like he couldn't look his fill. "I want you."

She got up, her legs wobbly, and walked around the table to him. James stood and took her hand, bowing while kissing her fingers. Then he frowned, staring at their clasped hands before glancing up at her face. “I don’t know why I did that. I meant to just shake your hand.”

She wound her arms around his neck, tucking herself against him, and wasn't at all surprised to feel how perfectly they fit together as he came to embrace her, gripping tightly in that eventual way James always had.

"I’m Buffy Summers,” she whispered against his neck, inhaling his familiar scent. “And you have me.”


End file.
